When I was a kid visiting a parent in the hospital was not
allowed. I don’t mean that as in visiting hours only, or accompanied by an
adult. It was No Children, period. It was considered to be too unsettling for the
patient to see their children; or so the patients were told. Of course that was
a load of crap; the most unsettling thing for a parent when they are in the
hospital is not seeing their children. And the children feel the same way. Somewhere
around 1970 that all changed; and now hospitals are probably too full of visitors
for anyone’s benefit. But that will have to be someone else’s story. My story
takes place in 1960 when I was about 6 years old.
Everyone should have an Aunt; or two; like Aunt Sissy in “A
Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” It seems like childhood would be incomplete without someone
like that in your life; an adult, but not subject to the usual rules. I was
fortunate enough to have 2 such Aunts; my father’s sisters Gladys and Gloria. I've
written about them before. They were just the right age to be Aunts; being my Dad's younger sisters. That's them with my grandmother "Nana" before I was born.
In 1960 my mother began a series of illnesses which would
color my childhood, and later on take her life. But not before she gave
everyone a run for their money; and not until she was ready. Mom was tiny, but
formidable. The point is that she was always in the hospital and I couldn't see
her. My Aunts thought this was absurd, and so a plan was hatched, whereby we would be able to see our mom.
I remember the turquoise walls of the hospital; it seems
like they painted all the health related buildings in that color. They may have
called it turquoise, but I called it “puke green”. The plan was fairly simple;
my brother and I would go up the stairs to the floor my mom was on. The only
hitch was that at each floor the stairway entrance was directly opposite the
head nurses station; making detection very likely.
I think it was Gladys who would emerge from the stairway and
engage the head nurse in conversation, or question, as Gloria, my brother and I
slipped past to the next flight of stairs. When we got to the next floor we
would repeat the process until we got where we were headed. Once there Gladys
had to do a prolonged version of diversion as Aunt Gloria quickly hustled us
down the hallway to y mom’s room. Hey, sometimes we actually made it!
Other times we failed dismally. My brother could never get
it right when we would pass each floor. The sequence went like this; Gloria would go first, and then call to
one of us, who would then dash across the opening in a streak so as not to be seen. But my
brother had a hard time with doing the quickstep and we got caught; and thrown
out; more times than we got in. Ah, but you should of seen the glow on my mom’s
face when we did.
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